


Hope Amongst Hubflowers

by mythtress



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Suicidal Thoughts, Survival, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 02:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12224022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythtress/pseuds/mythtress
Summary: Nate finds the will to survive, and carry on despite waking up in an atomic nightmare. Taking life day by day, he doesn't know what's to come but he'll face all of this new world's challenges to get back his family.





	Hope Amongst Hubflowers

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slightly altered Male Sole Survivor, with family and backstory. Please bare with me as I sort him and his jumble of a life out.

Fear and Rage. Pulse racing, blood rushing in the ears. Cold air burning sharp in the lungs. The gasp feels like the first breath he's ever taken in his entire life. The blaring alarms are muffled inside the pod. Body starts into a coughing fit. This time, when he slams his fist the pod door opens. Why didn't it open before? They're gone, his mother and son are gone! He had been helpless to stop them from being taken away. His mind's jumbled, and his foot slips on the puddle of water on the step. His body slams to the floor. It hurts, but he knows he's alive. The alarm is clear now, and painfully loud. 

Life support failure. 

He doesn't want to think about being the only one left. Not again. His body shivers involuntarily, even as he makes his way to the escape tunnel, the chill from the pod has sunk in deep. Deep like the snowdrifts of Anchorage. He can only hope that the feeling will fade away to a dull numbness, just as his thoughts of that place had. The huge cockroaches are disturbing, as are the skeletal remains strewn about the vault. The gun and pipboy are welcome windfalls. If there's anything bigger than the roaches, the soldier in him knows he'll be needing something more than a lead pipe. The elevator ride back to the surface feels like a descent into Hell, in the opposite direction. Or maybe it was the ride down that was the way into Hell? His mind is on autopilot, trying to cope with what has, and is happening. The sound of the huge vault door above him opening snaps him to attention. There's daylight above him... and the unknown.

Sunlight blinds him to the point of tears. Or is it that he doesn't want to see what the sunlight shows? 

There is nothing. 

Far in the distance the tattered skyline of Boston sits, it's jagged ruins a monument to man's folly. Below can be seen what remains of Sanctuary Hills. Collapsed homes, rusted out vehicles, debris, and cracked asphalt as far as the eye can see. The trees are barren, erect corpses jutting from the ground along the mountains. What remains of any grass is tinged a sickly yellow and dots the landscape in oddly dispersed patches. The world he knew has long since died away. Gone in an instant, a flash of atomic fire. 

For a while he considers putting the 10 millimeter to his temple and pulling the trigger. He has lost what he had and come into this terrifying new world a stranger, with nothing. His mother, his son, his home, his world; everything he knew or cared about is gone. He doesn't even know if they’re out there, still alive, or where to begin to get them back.

A gust of warm air blows across the flattened hilltop and settles something near his feet. He catches the glimpse of color out of the corner of his eye. It's in stark contrast to the brown hue of the barren earth and the off white of the 111 entrance. He picks up what appears to be a flower. It's a deep navy on the outside, but the inside petals shimmer in iridescent tones of blues and purples. The blossom is beautiful. If this apocalyptic wasteland can produce such beauty, surely there must be more out there than what he can see from the vault on the hill. 

Tears fall freely from his dark eyes, soaked up hungrily by the parched earth. He remembers something his mother would say after reading one of her favorite stories. 

'To hope. To never lose hope. For if we lose hope, we lose ourselves.' 

The flower is left on the platform, save for one petal, that he tucks into the pipboy cuff. He heads for the path to Sanctuary with a renewed sense of purpose, the chill of the vault forgotten, for now.

Traveling back down the path he finds the rickety bridge still intact over the little creek, marveling at how it has survived all this time. He stands amidst the ruined homes of his neighbors and feels a twinge of sorrow, knowing that some are back in the vault, frozen corpses. He doesn't have time to dwell on the sad thought as a metallic buzzing catches his attention. Outside what had been his old home, there's a Mr. Handy whacking away at what would appear to be dead shrubbery.

"Codsworth?"

"As I still function! Mr. Nate? Is that really you? Do my optic sensors need adjusting?"

"No, Codsworth, it's really me." He feels the familiar prick of tears at the corner of his eyes. The robot had become part of his family, and here he was, trimming the hedges as if life hadn't stopped when the bombs fell. 

“Oh sir! It’s so wonderful to see you again...though you are looking a bit worse for the ware. Don't want to let your mother catch you like that.” Three mechanical eyes spun on their stalks, searching. “Speaking of which, where is Madame, and young Shaun as well? Are they with you?” 

Nate's head bowed. “No Codsworth. Someone took them. Abducted them from the vault while we...while we were…” He shuddered. “I couldn't stop them.” 

“Sir...Sir these horrible things you're saying…You’re not making any sense.” The machine's robotic limbs rotated and spun. “I know what you need. Nothing a good meal can't solve, even after 200 years.” 

A deep chill ran down Nate’s spine as the number registered. “Wait… 200 years? That...that can't be right.”

Codsworth’s pinscher appendaged reached up and tapped at a deep dent in his round outer shell. “Give or take a few years, thanks to a couple knocks to the old chronometer, I’ve lost a bit of accuracy. But, yes Sir, roughly two centuries have passed since the bombs fell and you took shelter with your family in the vault.” 

Nate reached out to trace over the damage. He felt a wave of guilt hit him, mouth sinking into a deep frown. “Cods, I’m sorry we couldn't take you with us.” 

“It's alright, Sir. Everything happened so fast that day. The sirens and the screaming, and the...the bomb… Once it quieted down I carried on here at the homestead. Awaiting the day you, or your descendants, would emerge from the Vault.” 

The hot sting of tears threatened at the corner of his eyes, but Nate rubbed it away. This was all too much, and he was too raw to deal with any of it. 

“Sir?” 

Nate sniffed lightly, giving one last swipe over his eyes. “Yeah?” 

“My sensors are detecting movement in the houses. Small life forms. We should deal with these before you settle in.”

Nate held up the scratched 10mm, nearly forgetting he had been holding the weapon during their reunion. “Alright. Lead the way.” His mind switched to mission mode, focused on the task Codsworth had just given, and pushing everything else to the back corner of his brain to sort through later. 

“Very good, Sir. This way.” The robot glided away with a pulse of its thruster. Nate followed, clicking off the safety and bracing himself for more roaches. 

The houses were all in similar states of ruin. Decaying from centuries of sitting, unoccupied and unkempt. The force from the bomb had swept over the entire area. Nate had felt the beginning of it as they were lowered into the vault. The explosive force had knocked over fences, lawn decor, and blasted out windows. Entire walls had either fallen or rotted away. The asphalt had cracked, and heaved, forming deep crevices and leaving large mounds in the road. The concrete sidewalk had been swallowed up by the earth at points, and at others was broken through and turned to nothing but debris and powder. Dead trees and the rusted out husks of cars littered the once pristine Sanctuary Hills community.

“Over here, Sir” Codsworth brought them to one of the still standing structures. It had been the residence of Ms. Jenkins. Nate remembered her in not the fondest of terms, as she hadn’t been to keen on him or his mother. He heard an oddly loud buzzing noise from inside the home. Before he could ask Codsworth what would be making the sound, a positively gigantic fly floated into his cone of vision. The robot went right for it, with a whooping hollar. Nate was struck by the absurdity of it all, and remained in the doorway as Codsworth’s buzzsaw sliced through the insect. Two heavy pieces of flesh fell to the floor with a sickening squelch. Nate paled as he walked forward, thinking how this was all the world had become, giant insects and one crazy robot for company. 

“Sir!”

Nate hadn’t seen the second fly, it’s bulbous body somehow supported on miniscule wings, hovering down the hallway. It’s fatty thorax contracting as it launched some form of thick, gelled substance at him. The stuff splattered all over his lower abdomen and there was something squirming, something alive. A giant maggot! It had attached to his suit, propelled by it’s mother fly, and was now trying to burrow into him. He knocked it away, leaving it to writhe on the floor as he took a single shot, killing the fly, before it could launch another long range attack. It’s body exploded, covering the back of the hallway in sickly, green chunks. Nate hadn’t wanted to waste ammo on insects but he was panicking. His boot slammed down on the maggot, stopping it’s disgusting movements, and silencing it’s squelching. 

“Well done Sir. You’ll want to get that washed off. Perhaps the neighbors have something you can borrow?”

Nate watched the robot float by, feeling a creeping numbness sink through to his core. He wiped at the muck, and grimaced at finding that it seemed to be hardening in place. He followed Codsworth back out into the street. 

“Mr. Finiker had that shelter he was building. I’d start there myself.” His eyestalks rotated several times, as Nate nodded in agreement.

“Good idea, Cods. I...uh...I’ll go check it out.” 

“Right behind you, Sir!” 

Behind the Finiker home were several large bushes, laden with dark, maroon colored fruit. Nate reached out to palm one, hefting its weight, and feeling how the skin was bumpy, with a similar waxy texture to a nectarine. 

“Codsworth, is anything edible anymore?” Nate wasn’t sure if the robot would be able to answer the question, with having no need for nourishment. He wasn’t exactly keen on trial and error testing. 

“Those that have come and stayed while you were in the vault, did ingest certain fair from the surrounding area, Sir. If my memory serves. It has been quite a number of years since anyone has been out here, however.” Nate left the odd fruit there. If worse came to worse he’d at least know where to find it. 

The hatch to the Finiker bunker was sealed. Codsworth was able to heat up the seams and cut through the latches. Nate felt a twinge of remorse at wasting such a good hiding spot as he wrenched the door off, but any thought was removed from his head as the smell of stale decay hit him. He stumbled back, covering his nose and mouth. He gave it a few minutes before venturing into the small, dug out, bunker. A rack of shelves was lined with supplies, many of which looked unused. There was a radio, a safe, and a cot. Nate took in a breath as he saw the corpse. Sunken in eye sockets, hair fallen away to nothing but patches. Scraps of clothes and flesh melted into one, to form a macabre funeral shroud. The bones of the feet and hand had fallen away onto the mattress and floor. Mr. Finiker had most likely died shortly after entering his bunker, sealed himself into his own tomb. Nate didn’t want to know how the man had died, didn’t want to know how he’d suffered while Nate had slept in the Vault. He’d come back and give him a proper burial later. 

Nate watched the corpse’s withered features as he reached for the rucksack by the cot. He felt like Mr. Finiker would suddenly spring back to life, grab him by the collar, and accuse him of stealing. As he hauled the pack to his chest, the body remained still, it’s eyeless sockets staring, accusingly. He shoved everything that would fit into the rucksack, suddenly very aware of how much he didn’t want to be there. The bunker felt like it was running out of breathable air, as his chest began to tighten. He tried the handle on the safe and of course it was locked. Lost to him then. Nate slung the pack on his back and grabbed the dial radio that sat beside the cot, cautious in his fervor to avoid any pieces of Mr. Finiker.

Back up the ladder he went, pushing the radio up before him, and scurrying onto the sun bathed earth. He took in several large gulps of air. He’d never been claustrophobic before...

“Good haul, Sir?” Codsworth whirled about, seeming all too chipper over his grave robbing.

“Uh...yeah.” Nate got first to his knees then to his feet, proceeding to grab the radio. “Cods, put the hatch back in place, please.” He walked away without hearing the robot’s affirmative reply.


End file.
